Marathon FA Cup coverage suits those with taste for jumping off roofs

The ESPN presenter Rebecca Lowe became the first woman to host FA Cup final coverage. Photograph: Mike Egerton/EMPICS Sport

"Good morning," said the ESPN anchor, Rebecca Lowe, a few moments after 8am on Saturday, "and welcome to Wembley Stadium, where in just over nine hours' time Chelsea and Liverpool will take to the field in the 131st FA Cup final."

That's right, nine hours. In a unique experiment into the extremes of human endurance, ESPN's coverage brought us six times more buildup than match. When their broadcasting partners ITV entered the fray at 3.15pm, Adrian Chiles enthused that "as kids, we could never get enough of the steady ratcheting-up of tension – and here at ITV we remain suckers for it". It was a brave claim, given that they had been out-ratcheted to the tune of seven-and-a-quarter hours and showed a 30-year-old episode of Murder She Wrote instead.

Even back in the days when the Cup final was the only live match on television all season, with schedulers widely considering Open University lecturers more likely ratings-winners than footballers, this level of attention would have been unprecedented. (To illustrate precisely how much so, in 1952 the BBC's show started at 2.30pm, in 1962 11.15am – and there was golf, swimming and boxing in the mix as well – in 1972 10.45am – with occasional races from Kempton – in 1982 11.30am, in 1992 12.10pm and in 2002 Sky started at midday – and they were all 3pm kick-offs.)

ESPN split their buildup into manageable segments, the first called "Breakfast at Wembley". Two and a half hours later came "FA Cup Final Brunch" – in which we watched Robbie Savage make Eton Mess – and on they went through the day's mealtime markers. By the time they stopped, it was dinnertime.

They had compiled a list of the 20 all-time greatest FA Cup moments and, as befits a channel with nine hours of fluff to find, spread it over seven of them. Ronnie Radford's 1972 rocket against Newcastle snuck in at No10, while Liverpool wearing funny suits in 1996 was considered the second-best thing ever to happen in the entire history of this venerable, ludicrous-buildup-worthy competition (after Ryan Giggs's semi-final goal against Arsenal in 1999). It's certainly up there with the most talked about – on ESPN, Jason McAteer revealed that he gave his away and, on ITV, Robbie Fowler said not only has he still got his, but "it still fits". Which certainly suggests he occasionally wears it.

ESPN's musical interludes included a couple of songs by the Enemy, who performed on a roof that many viewers, six hours in by now, might have been tempted to jump off, and a snippet of Kevin Keegan singing You'll Never Walk Alone. His microphone was turned off after a couple of seconds, but that was enough for him to show a glimpse of the vocal stylings that made his 1979 single Head Over Heels a No31 smash.

The day's one gaffe came on ITV, whose staff should have been comparatively fresh. Just before kick-off, the commentator Clive Tyldesley remarked that, in an interview with the Chelsea striker broadcast on Friday night, the gay comedian Graham Norton "seemed to get inside Didier Drogba". But Lowe, the first woman to host Cup final coverage, survived the marathon well. She started it saying that she was "going to eat some energy bars". A good idea: coverage on this scale, even on the sofa, requires serious sustenance.

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